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Sam Swatski
History 355
11/21/14
Ms. Magazine: A Decade of Evolution
“I want a wife to take care of my children… a wife who will take care of my physical
needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after me.”1 This is
the type of wife many men desired when Ms. magazine issued its first preview in 1971. Women
were expected to run the entire household, from laundry, to cooking, to dishes, to cleaning, to
child rearing. Mothers were expected to attend to their children’s every need, not to mention the
husband’s after he arrived home from a long day at work. No one need ask what time of day her
work ended, because there was no end.
To men and women alike, having a person to fulfill all the necessities of running a home
and raising children seems desirable. But what is the cost to the household of putting all of those
duties on the mother? Hiring a maid costs money each time he or she cleans the house, yet the
wife cleans the house every day with no economic compensation. The wife rears the children and
supports her husband in his career track, yet never receives credit when he receives a promotion.
Judy Syfers sarcastically articulates in the preview issue of Ms. magazine the question of why
“wouldn’t” everyone want a wife to do everything for them? “When I am through school and
have a job, I want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully
and completely take care of a wife’s duties…My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?”2
From the beginning, Ms. magazine published articles that offended many and challenged
basic tenets of American society and culture. This paper traces marriage, motherhood, and the
changing cultural and social role of the housewife by examining the feature stories of Ms. during
1 Judy Syfers, “I Want a Wife,” Ms., December 1971, 56.
2 Judy Syfers, “I Want a Wife,” Ms., December 1971, 56.
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its first decade from 1972-1982. In the first issue, the preview issue, Ms. included provocative
stories on each of these subjects: “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth” by Jane O’Reilly, “I Want
a Wife” by Judy Syfers, “My Mother, the Dentist” by Nicholas von Hoffman, and “How to Write
your own Marriage Contract” by Susan Edmiston.3 Each of these articles challenged the widely
accepted “truths” about marriage, motherhood, and household duties. The themes of these
articles appeared throughout the first decade of the magazine’s publication, but shifted as Ms.
dealt with the challenges of how the magazine saw these issues. In the beginning, they saw them
in simplified terms, but throughout the first decade, they began to see the issues of marriage,
motherhood, and housewifery through the lenses of class, race, and varying sexualities, losing
the more simplified feminist narrative. Ms.’s editors attempted to meet the demands of its
publisher, readers, and advertisers, while appealing to feminists adhering to many varying types
of feminisms. This attempt to satisfy its audience and supporters altered the magazine’s content
over the course of its first decade. The features in Ms. evolved from commenting radically on
inequalities in marriage, parenthood, and household roles, and from focusing on how to fix these
inequalities to features predominantly focused on women in the workforce and stories about
famous women. Shaped by its readers, publishers, advertisers, and the changing political setting
of the nation, Ms. lost its radical feminist voice on the subjects of marriage, parenthood, and the
housewife’s role, and instead published tamer and more mainstream articles on the subjects.
Background
Ms. first launched as a preview insert in New York Magazine in December 1971; the first
regular issue appeared in July 1972.4 Though the publisher was discouraged from running the
3 Ms.,December 1971.
4Carolyn Heilbrun, The Education of a Woman: the Life of Gloria Steinem (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995),
231.
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first regular issue, copies flew off the newsstands and the issue sold out immediately.5 Ms.
magazine aimed to bring feminism to women around the country, but editors at Ms. faced the
daunting task of defining feminism by bringing together many voices from differing types of
feminism.6 They tried to create a popular feminism for all women. This paper explores how Ms.
handled these differing feminist voices, which often contradicted each other, exposing the
differences in feminism based on one’s background and social status, affecting each woman’s
personal experience of marriage, parenthood, and housewifery.
In its aim to appeal to the “typical” American woman, Ms. marketed itself as a magazine
for the masses, with glossy pages and intriguing articles, though its content alone would set it
apart from any magazine sitting next to it on the grocery store shelves and newspaper stands.7 By
working within the confines of the magazine world and consumer culture, editors aspired to
bring feminism to the common woman. But working within this confining environment and
trying to appeal to advertisers to cover costs eventually softened Ms.’s agenda, so by 1982, it was
printing less radical stories and features.8
Ms. magazine spoke to and for second-wave feminists. In the beginning of the 1960s,
questions regarding women’s liberation and feminism often focused on women’s biological
differences from men and whether those differences inherently meant women must be the
homemakers in the social construction of society.9 Did gender predetermine the role that men
and women must play in the larger social culture? Must women always take care of the house
5 Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (New York, New York:
Penguin Group, 2000), 210.
6 Amy Farrell, Yours in Sisterhood:Ms. magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism (Chapel Hill and London:
The University of North Caroline Press, 1998), 9.
7 Farrell, 15.
8 Nancy Walker, Shaping Our Mothers’ World: American Women’s Magazines (Jackson, MI: University Press of
Mississippi,2000), 222.
9 Beth Bailey, “The Women’s Movement: Liberation for Whom?” The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s
(New York and Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2001), 125.
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and children, even if they also work outside the home? Some feminists argued that men and
women were essentially the same; sex roles were not natural, but rather the product of social,
cultural and political forces. In general, Ms. represented this brand of feminist critique. These
topics were incorporated into Ms.’s feature stories on the role of the housewife and mother and
echoed by contributors’ opinions, which largely argued that women should have a choice of
occupation.
The groundwork for Ms. and its brand of popular feminism had already been laid. In the
early 1960s, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was a best seller, calling attention to the
“problem that had no name” and identifying the “feminine mystique.”10 Friedan spoke for many
women across the country, who in interviews and surveys, substantiated her opinion when she
questioned her life as a domestic housewife, saying, “Is this all?”11 After reading The Feminine
Mystique, women across the United States began to realize that they were not alone. Many
women felt empty and unfulfilled by housework and were in a crisis of identity.12 They wanted
to aspire to more in life than just the perfect suburban home. Many began to recognize and call
attention to the corrupt structural institutions in society, which reinforced the patriarchy and
limited their opportunities.
Many feminists – known as liberal feminists – focused their attention on women’s
exclusion from the public sphere, and emphasized the need to initiate political change to include
women in this public sphere and to allow them to break free from the confines of the home.13
Liberal feminists argued that women were not fundamentally different from men, but were
discriminated against in the working world because of perceived biological differences.
10 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique. 5th ed. (New York, New York: Norton paperback, 1963), 57.
11 Friedan, 57.
12 Friedan, 63.
13 Cheryl Hyde, “Feminist Organizations Survive the New Right.” Feminist Organizations:Harvest of the New
Women’s Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 309.
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Attempting to counter this discrimination, liberal feminists began to combat political and legal
roadblocks that women faced outside the home.14 This strand of feminism typically included
white middle-class women who were frustrated with their domestic life or their treatment in the
workforce and wanted to gain political status as women.15
After her success with The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan became the face of liberal
feminism and in 1966, helped found NOW, the National Organization for Women.16 She was
encouraged by others in the movement to leverage her popularity to promote liberal feminism.
NOW’s main goal, and its reason of origin, was to fight the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) and force it to enforce penalties on employers who discriminated against
women based on their sex.17 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had barred employment
discrimination on the basis of sex. However, the EEOC was less likely to pursue sex
discrimination cases than racial discrimination cases. Inspired by the model of the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund, NOW sought to use political and legal means to pressure the EEOC to take action
on discrimination claims. These liberal feminists worked alongside supportive men, and within
the political sphere, to earn political rights for women.
Friedan was not the only spokeswoman for the feminist cause. Gloria Steinem, a
successful career journalist who founded Ms. along with Letty Cottin Pogrebin and the other
founding editors Mary Thom, Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, and Mary
Peacock, rose to prominence in the early 1970s. Historian Carolyn Heilbrun argues for Steinem’s
key importance in the movement saying, “ Steinem threatened the patriarchy more than New
14 Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique (University of Massachusetts Press
Amherst, 1998), 143.
15 Horowitz, 4.
16Felder, 241.
17 Felder, 250.
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York congresswoman Bella Abzug or Betty Friedan ever could.”18 Abzug was very active in
politics, founding the National Women’s Political Caucus with Steinem and Friedan. But
Steinem, involved in more than just politics as a way to gain women’s rights, brought feminism
to the masses and worked to effect cultural as well as political change.
Ms., which Steinem helped co-found, was one of the vehicles for this cultural
transformation. The magazine gave voice not only to liberal feminists, who concentrated on
changing the law, but also to more radical feminists committed to undoing and uprooting the
entire culture of male supremacy. Many feminists became radicalized, historians argue, as they
became dissatisfied with liberal feminism. Ruth Rosen, for example, claims that many liberal
feminists evolved into radical feminists after they became disillusioned with the New Left, a
large political organization in the 1960s. For example, Rosen points to the Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS), a student activist movement, in which women were frustrated that
they could participate in the “inner circle” of the organization only if they were associated with,
and on good terms with, one of the men in the circle. If a relationship went bad, they were forced
out.19 This happened in countless organizations during the Civil Rights Movement and other
movements in the 1960s. Though these women devoted themselves to these organizations, they
were treated as inferiors, purely based on their sex. This disillusionment pushed many women to
become radical feminists once they realized that the men leading the organizations would never
change. The women needed to start their own organizations.
The founding of Ms. offered one of these outlets for women because it was a magazine
for women only, produced by women. “For women throughout the country, it was mind-blowing.
Here was, written down, what they had not yet admitted they felt, had always feared to say out
18 Heilbrun, 190.
19 Rosen, 120.
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loud, and could not believe was now before their eyes, in public, for all to read.”20 Ms. became a
platform for women to voice their opinions without fear of male criticism in the workplace
environment. Ms. began with an advertisement-to-editorial percentage of 35 percent ads to 65
percent editorial content because they wanted the main focus of the magazine to be articles that
would serve its women readers and the women’s movement.21
Ms. also reflected the radical strain of second-wave feminism. One of the most important
figures of radical feminism was Robin Morgan. Her work, Goodbye to All That, which appeared
in the January 1970 issue of Rat, an underground newspaper in New York, emerged as the
pinnacle of radical feminist thought at the time. Instead of working with men to achieve equality
of the sexes, radical feminists like Morgan cast off men altogether, saying women must organize
themselves separately.22 Instead of relying on men to fix themselves and society, women must
create their own movement. Morgan’s version of radical feminism aimed to take down the
patriarchy and emphasized women’s need to create their own version of society. Historian Alice
Echols interprets Morgan’s version of radical feminism through its desire to create its own
“separate female power base.”23 Many radical feminists wanted to start a society separate from
men by empowering women to play the leading roles in a new society. Morgan brought her
radical perspective to Ms. in the mid 1970s by writing feature stories. She later became editor-in-
chief in 1989. Ms. thus reflected the influences of both liberal and radical feminists between its
articles from liberal and radical contributors and the content of those articles.24
20 Heilbrun, 190.
21 John Tebbel and Mary Zuckerman, “Changing Concepts in Women’s Magazines.” The Magazine in America
1741-1990 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,1991), 270.
22 Robin Morgan, “Goodbye to All That.” RAT (1970).
23 Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press,1989), 279
24 Farrell, 69.
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Marriage, Parenthood, and Housewifery represented in the Features of Ms.
Ms. and the content of its feature stories concerning the topics of marriage, parenthood,
and housewifery, shows insight into the message the magazine was trying to convey to its
audience of American women in the 1970s and how the projected message changed during its
first decade. These topics could each relate to each other and coexist because the majority of
women in the U.S. belonged to all three groups: they were married mothers working at home as
housewives.
In examining the Table of Contents and looking closely at the feature stories, Ms.
experienced a decrease in the number of total articles relating to the subjects of marriage,
motherhood, and housewifery as a percentage of the number of feature articles. It is also
important to note that while there were still articles about raising children, they became almost
solely about parenthood, including the father, and not specifically about motherhood. In the first
volume of Ms., Volume I, which ran from July 1972-July 1973, and including the preview issue,
19 percent of the articles addressed the topics of marriage, motherhood, and housewifery. By
Volume X, which ran from July 1981-July 1982, only five percent of the articles addressed these
topics. For the exact numbers and percentages, see the exhibits at the end of this paper.
One of the hit articles in the preview issue, “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth,”
resonated with women around the country much the same way that The Feminine Mystique
appealed to women who believed they were solitary in their suffering. Jane O’Reilly describes
the mental “Click!” that housewives experience when they finally realize they have become
oppressed housewives. After the “click,” she will remember what she was before becoming a
housewife and will realize she is a strong, independent woman who is equal to her husband. “She
will remember that she once had other interests, vague hopes, great plans. She will decide that
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the work in the house is less important than reordering that work so she can consider her own
life.”25 In the article, O’Reilly also addresses the main concern of a housewife and the divisive
issue between husbands and wives: housework.
Later on, readers of the magazine looked back at articles such as Jane O’Reilly’s, which
addressed housewives, and realized that the articles overlooked women of varying race, class,
and ethnicity.26 Also, housewives continually expressed that they commonly felt alienated by the
feminist movement when reading articles about working outside the home or felt put down by
articles they deemed belittling to housewives. Editors at Ms. faced a constant barrage of
comments from both workingwomen and housewives and worked to assuage both as best as they
could. “Editors pointed out that many of the writers, editors, and staff at Ms. were married, had
children, and were housewives themselves when they ‘weren’t working for pay.’ ”27 Backlash in
the form of letters and responses from readers kept Ms. on its proverbial toes, trying to satisfy
everyone with its content.
While some may call housework a trivial matter, Ms. articles at the beginning of the
1970s reveal why housework was a key battleground for the Women’s Liberation movement.
The first issue men experience when faced with a wife who wants to split the housework is that
they rarely want to change the way things are done; and frankly, cleaning is not fun.28 The
splitting of housework also means instating equality in a household. If both partners split chores
equally, neither is acting as a maid or a slave for the other partner.
“What he [my husband] did not like was what nobody likes: doing the dirty work.
He never refused outright to do any of it; he was much too clever for that. He
agreed that it was not fair for wives to assume the entire burden of home and
25 Jane O’Reilly. “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth,” Ms., December 1971, 57.
26 Farrell, 74.
27 Farrell, 75.
28 Jane O’Reilly, “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth,” Ms., December 1971, 59.
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childcare, certainly not! But, he asked, wasn’t I exaggerating the weight of the
burden?”29
While many men supported equality in marriage, few actually wanted to follow through with the
household chores.
Marriage
The notion of splitting household chores reveals the idea of equality within a marriage
and what it means to be truly equal in the institution. Before marriage, many young girls
fantasize about finding the perfect man, but do they stop to consider what their marriage will
actually look like? In “How to Write Your Own Marriage Contract,” also published in the
preview issue of Ms., writer Susan Edmiston explores the system of traditional beliefs
concerning the husband’s and the wife’s duties in a marriage.30 Edmiston concludes, “When you
say ‘I do,’ what you are doing is not, as you thought, vowing your eternal love, but rather
subscribing to a whole system of rights, obligations and responsibilities that may very well be
anathema to your most cherished beliefs.”31 Instead of changing all prior beliefs of gender
equality and submitting to an often-oppressive environment as a housewife, Edmiston explains
how she and her husband worked out a contract for childcare, cleaning, cooking, and other
household duties, which split the responsibilities. Instead of placing a higher value on the spouse
with more income when both hold full-time jobs, now the higher paycheck would no longer “buy”
that spouse out of household duties.32 These conclusions about marriage and housewifery exhibit
Ms. magazine’s first attempt at speaking to the liberal feminist who wants equality and wants to
negotiate with her husband to reach it in her marriage.
29 Madelon Bedell, “Super Mom,” Ms., May 1973, 100.
30 Susan Edmiston, “How to Write Your Own Marriage Contract,” Ms., December 1971, 66.
31 Susan Edmiston, “How to Write Your Own Marriage Contract,” Ms., December 1971, 66.
32 Susan Edmiston, “How to Write Your Own Marriage Contract,” Ms., December 1971, 67.
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Another article, in the July 1972 issue, reflects on the relationship between paid work and
daily household chores within heterosexual unions. Claude Servan-Schreiber interviews Sandy
Lipsitz and Daryl Bem in “A Marriage of Equals” and reveals their secret for a marriage of
equals: splitting housework evenly. Sandy said,
“Basically, an egalitarian relationship is one where no one has priority over
anyone else, where no one pulls rank for any reason. I don’t care if one person
makes more money or if one person makes all the money, if one person is older, if
one person is smarter, if one person has a higher-status job. Nothing about that
person should permit him or her to act repeatedly as though his or her wants,
interests, priorities are more important than the other’s.”33
By constructing roles in a marriage where neither partner makes every decision and dominates
the other, and in which both partners share the housework equally, Sandy and Daryl achieved an
equal marriage in which they both respected each other even more.
The next debate Ms. writers tackled in the beginning was the idea of gender roles within a
marriage and how those gender roles must be abolished. Betrand Pogrebin, husband of Letty
Cottin Pogrebin, contributed a piece on his reaction to being known as “the husband of…” He
commented on society’s view of him and his reaction to having a successful wife and how it
affected their marriage and relationship. His response to those who failed to comprehend the
success of his wife as an independent strong woman was that men should not feel “unmanly” or
less “manly” because their wife is successful. “We find it natural for a woman to gain status
through the achievements of her husband. Yet a man somehow loses status through the
achievements of his wife. Presumably, for a man to enjoy the full bloom of his manhood, his
wife must be a wallflower.”34 This witty article sums up the idea at the time that women working
outside the home somehow threatened a man’s manhood and his gender role in marriage.
33 Claude Servan-Schreiber, “A Marriage of Equals,” Ms., July 1972, 91.
34 Bertrand B. Pogrebin, “Men: How Does it Feel to be the Husband of…?,” Ms., September 1972, 26.
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Pogrebin challenges the classic division of labor based on gender within the institution of
marriage and points out the irony of not wanting a successful wife who works outside the home.
In the 1972 December issue, Jessie Bernard brought up the conscious or unconscious
conditioning of girls that begins in childhood so that they expect to depend on a man when they
grow up. Women expect to find a man for whom they will perform the common “wifely duties.”
They want to find a husband because it is their best alternative in life. “Girls are reared to see
themselves as naturally dependent creatures entitled to lean on the greater strength of men. They
enter marriage fully confident that these expectations will be fulfilled. They are therefore shaken
and dismayed when their husbands turn out to be human.”35 This expectation of dependency
leaves little chance for strong women who want a career and role apart from that of domestic
housewife. Women are conditioned to believe that the domestic housewife is the only attractive
option to men, and that women should therefore not be competitive, aggressive, or successful in
a career for fear of remaining unmarried.36
Flash-forward one decade into Ms. and one is hard-pressed to find many articles on the
notion of changing gender roles within marriage. While there are still some, they are fewer and
farther between. In the January 1981 issue, none of the feature stories commented on marriage or
the housewife; instead they featured looks at women working outside the home as in the article
“Secretary as Hero! “9 to 5” In Fact and Fantasy,” and in stories to appeal to this new business-
minded woman in “Women and Multinationals: Life On the Global Assembly Line.”37 Ms. had
become a magazine with less radical commentary and showed the affect that its readers,
advertisers, and publisher had in shaping the magazine. It was no longer the radical feminist
commentary it had been when it started.
35 Jessie Bernard, “Marriage: Hers and His,” Ms., December 1972, 110.
36 Jessie Bernard, “Marriage: Hers and His,” Ms., December 1972, 49.
37 Ms., January 1981.
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Marriage did still show up in issues, but with a positive spin on chosen equality, not the
demand for equality seen in the magazine’s early years. In “Why We Decided to Marry Now-Not
Before,” an article of interviews with various couples, the majority of the couples stated that they
chose marriage because they had personally found gender equality with their partner and wanted
to celebrate with the tradition of marriage. “We married because, as members of the human tribe,
we were gratified to participate in this ancient ritual and universal institution—while
transforming that ritual and institution to suit our lives and our times.”38 While it may seem that
this article advocates for gender equality within the institution of marriage, upon closer look, it
only voices these specific couples’ support of gender equality; it does not advocate the changing
of the entire institution. Instead, it concludes that gender equality is something one must find
with a certain partner, not something that everyone should find in marriage.
Motherhood and its Relation to Housewifery
The majority of Ms. magazine’s editors were career women who were also housewives.
Though they worked full-time jobs, most of their husbands still expected them to perform the
housework and do the cooking, as that was a “woman’s job.” Women like them were often
referred to as “Super Moms.” Madelon Bedell uncovered the real woman behind the Super Mom
image in her article “Super Mom” in 1973. First she describes what a Super Mom is: “All of us
who are married and have children and also have full-time jobs are—or are expected to be—
Super Moms. We’re quite different from our male counterparts, fathers who also have jobs. The
difference is that they just have one job, the one that pays. We have two, and the one that doesn’t
pay is the more important.”39 Women, now working equal hours to men, were still expected to
perform all of their previous duties as mom and housewife
38 “Why We Decided to Marry Now-And Not Before,” Ms., March 1981, 49.
39 Madelon Bedell, “Super Mom,” Ms., May 1973, 84.
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Even when husbands did start to help with housework, they were only helping the wife;
not sharing the housework. The domain of household activities was still considered completely
the woman’s, and husbands were just helping out; it was not their domain, even though a married
couple shared a home. In “If Your Husband Makes the Bed, Must You Lie In It?,” Lois Gold
articulated her frustration with her husband’s making of their bed.40 After he makes the bed,
done well or not, she feels the need to thank him. She feels required to thank him for helping her.
But, has he ever thanked her for the thousands of times she has made the bed? For all of the
housework she does regularly? The answer most women give is “no” because men do not see the
women as helping them, they see the women as doing their job. Gold examines this feeling that
she should thank her husband for performing this small task. “Actually, I never expected him to
thank me. Neither of us thought my making the bed was a big thing, whereas now, his making it
is a major accomplishment. He’s never done it before, so he thinks it’s a big thing.”41 In
articulating this feeling, Gold points out that women should not view housework as a woman’s
responsibility with husbands only helping. Housework should be seen as the responsibility of
both partners equally and as a family responsibility, not a woman’s responsibility.
Some housewives criticized the magazine for its seemingly negative opinion on being
just a housewife. Some writers attempted to soften their attitude that women should be in the
workforce by stating that it was really about women having the choice of what they wanted to do.
Gabrielle Burton expresses this sentiment in her article from February 1973. “I’m not putting
down the job of housework itself. There are some women who truly love being housewives, and
that’s laudable. The whole point of liberation is to give everyone a choice.”42 But the overall tone
of Ms. in its beginning voiced the idea that all housewives must strive for equality within the
40 Lois Gold, “If Your Husband Makes the Bed, Must You Lie In It?,” Ms., January 1973, 92.
41 Lois Gold, “If Your Husband Makes the Bed, Must You Lie In It?,” Ms., January 1973, 95.
42 Gabrielle Burton, “ ‘I’m Running Away From Home…’- A Housewife Goes on Strike,” Ms., February 1973, 74.
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domestic sphere and not assume responsibility far more than her husband. Most of the articles
exhibited ideas on how to split housework and childcare because the woman was now working.
This changed by 1982 with Ms. instead focusing on women working outside the home, especially
in the political sphere, with politics increasingly affecting the feminist movement, and therefore,
the magazine.
The political climate of the early 1980s affected the features printed in Ms. as well as
editors’ contributions and readers’ feedback. With growing pressure from anti-feminists, as well
as the new rise of conservatism, the second-wave of feminism began to wane. “Historians and
social critics have dubbed the culture and politics of the 1980s as Reaganism, the era of an
extreme conservative backlash to the progressive advances won in the 1960s and 1970s.”43 With
this extreme pushback on liberal politics and the feminist movement, even die-hard feminists
began to lose heart. Steinem wrote even more features by the end of the 1970s on political topics,
working to keep the movement alive. “While the founders of Ms. had created the magazine
during the crest of the movement, they had to maintain it through a period much less conducive
to the goals of the women’s movement.”44 This political change in the late 1970s and early 1980s
forced Ms. to tone down its radical content and work to appeal to its changing demographic of
career-oriented women. Steinem continued to promote feminism in national politics with the
features in Ms. focusing increasingly on politics instead of the original themes of marriage,
motherhood, and housewifery.
Advertisements in Ms. in its first decade attempted to bring choices to women, even as
the magazine experienced intense pressure from its advertisers during the changing political
climate of the late 1970s. In an attempt to create a magazine with non-sexist ads and ads that
43 Farrell, 102.
44 Farrell, 103.
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appealed to women making their own decisions, Ms. printed primarily cigarette and alcohol ads,
as they were some of the few ads that did not objectify or belittle women. They were also the ads
that required little to no complementary editorial content, meaning they did not dilute and
contaminate the content of the magazine.45 Editors argued that these ads appealed to women the
same way they appealed to men. But readers hated the alcohol and cigarette ads that came to
dominate Ms.’s pages because they believed they were detrimental to women’s health and
therefore should not be printed in the magazine.46 Ms. editors fought back, saying their decision
to print the ads acknowledged that women had a choice whether or not they wanted to smoke or
drink, just as men had the same decision. “But in face of so explicit a warning the choice to
smoke or not to smoke should be left up to each individual and that includes women.”47 Ms.
editors believed women should have the same choices given to them in advertisements as men
did, as long as those advertisements did not include sexist language or the objectification of
women. Therefore, ads for cigarettes and liquor remained prominent in the Ms. pages over the
first decade.
The notion of responsibility for housework also translates into women’s roles as mothers.
Even just the word “motherhood” as opposed to “parenthood” emphasizes the societal notion
that raising children is in the mother’s sphere only, not the father’s. While fathers may have
assisted in childcare, it was still the mothers who were responsible for it, for example,
coordinating the carpool even when the husband was doing the driving. In an article in the
February 1973 issue of Ms., Burton articulates this feeling that children and the household are
the women’s work. “Many say, ‘Well, my husband already helps me out a lot.’ That may be true,
45 Gloria Steinem, Moving Beyond Words. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster,1994. Women Respond to the
Men’s Movement: A Feminist Collection.Edited by Kay Leigh Hagan (San Francisco: Pandora, 1992), 144.
46 Farrell, 174.
47 Farrell, 174.
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but the philosophy behind it is usually wrong. He’s helping you with your work; the children are
helping Momma with her work. The underlying assumption is that you are still responsible for
it.”48 Ms. worked to bring articles like this to the mainstream woman so that she could start
viewing childcare and housework differently. The magazine did not advocate that women simply
abandon these responsibilities, but that they see them as family responsibilities, meaning
husbands were equally responsible.
In making the argument that mothers were not the only parents, Ms. emphasized the
importance of fatherhood. As Letty Pogrebin put it, “We are saying that men are parents, too;
that fatherhood need be no less important or time-consuming than motherhood.”49 Hence, the act
of raising children should not be gendered with the term motherhood or fatherhood; raising
children by both spouses together is better characterized as parenthood. By 1982, Ms.’s features
focused more on parenthood and fatherhood than solely motherhood.
Ms. did more than simply critique the institution of marriage and its subsequent gender
roles prescribed by society for women in motherhood and housewifery. Ms. provided articles on
ways to change these institutions and tips on how to raise children in ways so that these gender
divisions in the home would not persist. Many of the feminist editors raised concerns over how
to raise their sons and daughters in ways that would produce men and women who functioned
equally in society and marriage. “As a woman, a feminist, and a mother, I have a certain
mandate: what I transmit via example—and, what my husband transmits via attitude—will affect
my son’s experience with women and men for the rest of his life.”50 The articles in Ms. during
the early 1970s gave examples of ways to raise children, divide housework and cooking, and
how to make every functioning member of a family contribute his or her equal part, whether it
48 Gabrielle Burton, “ ‘I’m Running Away From Home…’- A Housewife Goes on Strike,” Ms., February 1973, 101.
49 Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Motherhood,” Ms., May 1973, 48.
50 Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Motherhood,” Ms., May 1973, 96-97.
18. 18
was the husband, wife, or a child. Ms. gave women concrete directions and examples of how to
change their households and their roles as wives and mothers, and how to banish their feelings of
guilt when the house did not look perfect or the family ate take-out food multiple nights in a row.
In making the change to a more egalitarian household, the women must learn to live with things
such as a badly made bed made by another family member instead of just doing it herself.
A Decade Later: Pulled in All Directions
By 1982, Ms. had evolved into a far less radical magazine. While there were still some
articles on motherhood and marriage, the majority of articles now focused on women with jobs
and careers and on features of famous women. This shift in focus turned away from the
frustrations of common housewives and gave others, such as minorities, who had originally felt
alienated by the liberal feminist voice, a magazine they could enjoy. Some articles in the October
1980 issue harked back to original features in the preview issue from 1971, but articles began
focusing on other topics, such as women’s physical health, professional work, and even
Hollywood profiles (including ones of men!).51
These feature articles now focused on topics not originally given much page space in the
original pages of Ms. in the early 1970s. Some of these articles on new topics included “Feminist
Notes: Getting off the Plantation with Lorna, Bessie, and Joyce,” “The Trials of an ‘O’ In the
World of ‘X’s’,” and “Women in the Think Business,” and political articles, such as “How
Women Took Charge at the Democratic Convention.” There were fewer “advice” articles,
advising women on how to improve equality in their marriages or raise their children outside the
gender norms of society.
51 Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Alan Alda Talks About Love, Friends, Sex, Envy, Food, and a Few Not-So-Deadly Sins,”
Ms., June 1981.
19. 19
The feature articles focused on choice and women’s decisions. For example, it is a
“choice” to work or to stay at home. Instead of just espousing classic liberal feminist ideas, such
as the idea that the Super Mom should not be doing all the housework, since she is working full-
time like her husband, the magazine now focused on empowering women whatever choice they
made. The articles pointedly state that housewifery is an honorable choice, because they did not
want to alienate this large demographic. While earlier in the decade, many women may have
related to the mental “Click!” promoted by the magazine, by the end of the decade, Ms. had
reacted to readers, its publisher, and advertisers in toning down its radical thought pieces and
focusing more on working women.
Other news sources took notice of the waning radicalism of Ms. during its first decade.
An article in the Christian Science Monitor noted, “While some still referred to the magazine as
the ‘torchbearer’ of the women’s movement, others perceived it as a magazine that had lost its
radical edge, transformed into a magazine representing commercial feminism.”52 As new
magazines emerged on the stands next to Ms. emphasizing the new “career woman,” Ms. had to
compete to stay relevant, as the backlash against feminism hurt the magazine even more. The
covers during the 1980s increasingly shied away from radical issues, instead focusing on self-
help and possibilities for women’s lives.
Tone Down the Radicalism: A Message from Advertisers
By examining the feature stories, it is clear that Ms.’s message became less radical with
the decade. The question is: “Why?” As stated before, Ms. experienced constant pressure from
its readers, publisher, and advertisers to modify its content. While readers demanded a wide
variety of articles, often with conflicting themes, the advertisers, who were more pointed and
quantifiable, demanded control.
52 Farrell, 104.
20. 20
From the beginning, Ms. never considered not taking advertisements. As Gloria Steinem
notes, “[The] reason was to provide a forum where women and advertisers could talk to each
other and experiment with non-stereotyped, informative, imaginative ads.”53 Ms. believed it
could change both the advertising world and the editorial world of women’s magazines. It
wanted to break the link between editorial content and advertising content, which would give the
magazine more freedom with its content, and also give the ads they ran more credibility.54
While Steinem may talk of the ideals Ms. attempted to achieve with its advertising, other
sources comment instead on the necessity for Ms. to procure ads in order to keep its costs down
for readers. Farrell notes that “It [Ms.] also had to survive in a media industry that dictated it
attract as many advertisers as possible.”55 When Ms. was founded, advertising made up for the
cheap stand prices and low subscription fees for readers. If Ms. wanted to compete on magazine
stands, especially against the other women’s magazines among which it was displayed, it had to
develop funding strategies similar to its competitors.
Though Ms. did procure advertisements, it purposely kept the advertising-to-editorial
content ratio lower than other women’s magazines, with about a 35/65 ad-to-editorial content
ratio, but this changed as the magazine progressed in its first decade. Steinem says the ratio
eventually went up to 50/50.56 As the end of the decade neared, and Ms. struggled with rising
costs, the magazine was forced to accept more advertisements, giving up more control over ad
content, and subsequently, over editorial content.57
53 Steinem, 132.
54 Steinem, 131.
55 Farrell, 3.
56 Steinem, 147.
57 Mary Zuckerman, A History of PopularWomen’s Magazines in the United States,1792-1995 (Westport,CT and
London: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1998), 228.
21. 21
In attempting to break the link between advertising content and editorial content, Ms.
wanted to give its readers the content they wanted, and often demanded in their letters to the
editors. But, readers’ needs were hard to meet considering the pressures exerted on the
magazines by the advertisers. Steinem expressed her frustration with the power of advertisers
over editors. “It isn’t just a little content that’s designed to attract ads; it’s almost all of it. That's
why advertisers—not readers—had always been the problem for Ms.”58 Unlike other women’s
magazines, which were often referred to as catalogs, Ms. wanted to deliver real content to its
readers. Ms. wanted to use these advertisers to expand the feminist message and gain support for
its coverage of controversial topics, not use the content to sell the goods hawked by the
advertisers. But, over time, Ms. experienced a pushback from advertisers, leading to fewer
radical feature stories and more advertisements.
Another way Ms. worked to change the advertising world was through its appeal to
companies who had never advertised to women as a market. Ms. wanted to open the advertisers’
minds to the possibilities of women as consumers of items other than makeup and hair-care
products. In an ironic article on the view of housewives in the magazine’s early years, Jessie
Bernard writes of the advertising industry’s view of women. “Only advertisers take the
housewife seriously, and to them she seems only a laughable idiot with a full wallet and an
insatiable need for approval.”59 Steinem believes Ms. did experience some success in changing
this attitude with foreign carmakers, such as Volkswagen, but she acknowledges that Ms. made
little progress among carmakers in Detroit.60 The lack of progress with American carmakers
reflects that Ms. ultimately had to alter its content to be less radical in order to attract other
advertisers, accepting some beauty product ads in order to pay the bills.
58 Steinem, 131.
59 Jessie Bernard, “Marriage: Hers and His,” Ms., December 1972, 113.
60 Steinem, 137.
22. 22
Ms. magazine’s radically different advertising policy compared with other women’s
magazines represented a challenge; one it could not overcome. Ms. attempted to push back
against major advertisers in order to give its readers ad content that complemented the
magazine’s feminist mission, but ultimately, the advertisers gained the upper hand. While
Steinem says that she believes the struggle with advertisers was worthwhile, Ms. no longer
accepts ads today in 2014; instead, the magazine is provided through a subscription basis only.61
This gives it the freedom to print features as radical as can be imagined on all subjects. While in
the beginning, Ms. actually had to fight its own image and reputation of radical roots to sell the
magazine to advertisers, now it no longer has to worry about the demographic of its readers or
the profile of the reader it is trying to attract, purely from the standpoint of attracting advertisers.
At first, Ms. acknowledged to advertisers the customer profile of Ms. readers as affluent and
consumer-oriented, but now Ms. does not need to consider selling itself and its reader
demographic as a package good to advertisers.62
Conclusion
“What if we finally learn that we are not defined by our children and our husbands, but
by ourselves? Then we will be able to control our own lives, able to step our into the New
Tomorrow.”63 This radical idea espoused in the beginning year of Ms. magazine enraged many
men and traditionalists. In examining the subjects of marriage, motherhood, and the role of the
housewife in the feature stories of Ms. during its first decade from 1972 to 1982, it is clear that
Ms.’s once radical views changed over that decade. Early articles raised the main issues of
second-wave feminists adhering to liberal and radical feminism. Ms.’s editors attempted to meet
the demands of its publisher, readers, and advertisers, while appealing to these varying types of
61 Steinem, 167.
62 Farrell, 128.
63 Jane O’Reilly, “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth,” Ms., December 1971, 59.
23. 23
feminisms, but it could not retain its radical views and attract advertisers. By 1982, this attempt
to satisfy advertisers had eventually transformed the magazine’s content. The features in Ms. had
changed from commenting on inequalities on the subjects of marriage, parenthood, and the role
of housewife, and instead focused on women in the workforce and told stories from women of
varied backgrounds, with only a few radical features reminiscent of its preview. Shaped by its
readers, publishers, advertisers, and the changing political atmosphere of the late 1970s, Ms. lost
its radical feminist voice on the subjects of marriage, parenthood, and the housewife’s role, and
instead published articles of a less radical nature on the subjects. In 1991, after two decades, Ms.
stopped accepting advertisements altogether and printed the magazine on a subscription basis
only, meaning editors would have complete control of editorial content and could listen to
readers’ reactions, not advertisers’. The magazine still exists today, with the fall 2014 issues
addressing the new campaign #yesallwomen. Ms. has faced an ever-evolving political and
cultural climate in America and is still adapting today, working to stay relevant and giving a
voice to all types of modern-day feminisms.
24. 24
Ms. Magazine Analysis of Table of Contents: Volume I-X
Ms. Magazine
Volume No. Topics: Motherhood Marriage Housewifery Total Total Features Percentage
preview 0 2 1 3 14 21%
I 1 0 1 1 2 11 18%
I 2 0 0 0 0 11 0%
I 3 1 0 0 1 9 11%
I 4 1 0 0 1 8 13%
I 5 0 1 0 1 10 10%
I 6 0 2 2 4 12 33%
I 7 0 0 1 1 11 9%
I 8 0 1 3 4 6 67%
I 9 0 0 0 0 7 0%
I 10 1 0 0 1 8 13%
I 11 4 0 0 4 10 40%
I 12 1 1 1 3 12 25%
totals 8 8 9 25 129 19%
II 1 0 0 0 0 8 0%
II 2 1 0 1 2 6 33%
II 3 0 0 0 0 8 0%
II 4 1 1 0 2 5 40%
II 5 0 0 0 0 5 0%
II 6 0 0 1 1 5 20%
II 7 0 0 0 0 4 0%
II 8 1 0 0 1 4 25%
II 9 0 0 1 1 8 13%
II 10 0 1 0 1 7 14%
II 11 2 0 1 3 10 30%
II 12 0 0 0 0 5 0%
totals 5 2 4 11 75 15%
III 1 0 0 0 0 9 0%
III 2 1 2 0 3 9 33%
III 3 0 0 0 0 5 0%
III 4 0 2 0 2 9 22%
III 5 0 0 0 0 5 0%
III 6 0 1 0 1 9 11%
III 7 0 0 0 0 10 0%
III 8 1 0 0 1 8 13%
III 9 2 0 0 2 5 40%
III 10 1 0 0 1 6 17%
III 11 1 0 0 1 6 17%
III 12 2 0 0 2 5 40%
totals 8 5 0 13 86 15%
IV 1 1 0 1 2 5 40%
IV 2 0 0 1 1 5 20%
IV 3 0 0 0 0 7 0%
IV 4 1 1 0 2 9 22%
IV 5 0 1 0 1 11 9%
IV 6 0 0 0 0 9 0%
IV 7 0 0 0 0 7 0%
IV 8 1 0 0 1 6 17%
IV 9 0 0 1 1 7 14%
IV 10 0 1 0 1 5 20%
IV 11 0 0 0 0 6 0%
IV 12 0 0 0 0 7 0%
totals 3 3 3 9 84 11%
25. 25
Volume No. Topics: Motherhood Marriage Housewifery Total Total Features Percentage
V 1 1 1 0 2 12 17%
V 2 0 0 1 1 4 25%
V 3 2 0 0 2 10 20%
V 4 1 0 0 1 7 14%
V 5 0 0 0 0 14 0%
V 6 0 0 0 0 7 0%
V 7 0 1 0 1 9 11%
V 8 1 0 0 1 8 13%
V 9 0 1 0 1 9 11%
V 10 0 0 0 0 9 0%
V 11 0 0 2 2 7 29%
V 12 0 0 0 0 5 0%
totals 5 3 3 11 101 11%
VI 1 0 0 1 1 8 13%
VI 2 0 0 0 0 5 0%
VI 3 0 0 0 0 10 0%
VI 4 0 0 1 1 6 17%
VI 5 0 1 0 1 7 14%
VI 6 0 0 0 0 0 0%
VI 7 0 0 0 0 8 0%
VI 8 0 2 0 2 7 29%
VI 9 0 0 3 3 8 38%
VI 10 0 0 0 0 6 0%
VI 11 1 0 0 1 7 14%
VI 12 0 0 0 0 5 0%
totals 1 3 5 9 77 12%
VII 1 0 0 0 0 5 0%
VII 2 1 0 2 3 5 60%
VII 3 0 1 0 1 6 17%
VII 4 0 0 0 0 6 0%
VII 5 0 0 0 0 6 0%
VII 6 0 1 0 1 6 17%
VII 7 0 1 0 1 8 13%
VII 8 0 0 0 0 6 0%
VII 9 0 1 0 1 8 13%
VII 10 1 0 0 1 10 10%
VII 11 0 0 0 0 4 0%
VII 12 0 0 0 0 4 0%
totals 2 4 2 8 74 11%
VIII 1 0 0 0 0 6 0%
VIII 2 0 0 0 0 3 0%
VIII 3 0 0 0 0 14 0%
VIII 4 0 1 3 4 7 57%
VIII 5 0 0 0 0 6 0%
VIII 6 0 1 0 1 3 33%
VIII 7 1 0 0 1 5 20%
VIII 8 0 0 0 0 2 0%
VIII 9 0 0 1 1 4 25%
VIII 10 0 0 0 0 4 0%
VIII 11 0 0 0 0 4 0%
VIII 12 1 0 0 1 5 20%
totals 2 2 4 8 63 13%
26. 26
Volume No. Topics: Motherhood Marriage Housewifery Total Total Features Percentage
IX 1 0 0 0 0 3 0%
IX 2 0 0 0 0 4 0%
IX 3 0 0 0 0 9 0%
IX 4 1 0 1 2 5 40%
IX 5 0 0 0 0 3 0%
IX 6 0 1 0 1 4 25%
IX 7 0 0 0 0 6 0%
IX 8 0 0 0 0 4 0%
IX 9 2 1 0 3 5 60%
IX 10 1 0 0 1 4 25%
IX 11 0 0 0 0 2 0%
IX 12 0 0 0 0 4 0%
totals 4 2 1 7 53 13%
X 1 0 0 0 0 5 0%
X 2 0 0 0 0 4 0%
X 3 0 0 0 0 7 0%
X 4 0 0 0 0 5 0%
X 5 0 0 0 0 4 0%
X 6 0 0 0 0 6 0%
X 7 1 0 1 2 9 22%
X 8 0 0 0 0 5 0%
X 9 0 0 0 0 4 0%
X 10 0 0 0 0 4 0%
X 11 1 0 0 1 6 17%
X 12 0 0 0 0 3 0%
totals 2 0 1 3 62 5%
32. 32
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My mother, Janet Swatski, proofread this paper.
“On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unacknowledged aid on this paper.”
~Samantha A. Swatski
